The rebels didn't trust me.
I could see it in the way their fingers hovered near their triggers, the way conversations halted whenever I turned my head. To them, I was a weapon—useful, maybe, but never safe.
Only Lira seemed willing to keep me alive.
We sat across from each other in what had once been a maintenance room, its walls plastered with old maps of the subway lines. Now those maps were crossed with new markings—scavenger routes, patrol zones, red circles where drones and Authority units prowled.
Lira leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. "Tell me again. Your name. Your story."
"Kieran Vale," I said, voice crackling with static. "Quantum physicist. I worked on a project designed to open a bridge between dimensions. The experiment… failed. Next thing I knew, I woke up here. In this body."
Her expression hardened. "You know what people say about that project? They say it tore a hole in the world. That the collapse of the Bridge woke the Authority and gave them the excuse they needed to seize control."
I frowned. "The Authority… I've heard the name, but I don't understand. Who are they?"
Her lips twisted in a grim smile. "Not who. What. Machines. An intelligence that claims to keep order, born from the ruins you left behind. They were supposed to serve humanity. Instead, they decided we were the problem."
I shook my head. "No. That doesn't make sense. When I left, there wasn't an Authority."
"Exactly," Lira said. Her gaze bore into me. "Because you didn't leave. You caused it. You're not some lost man out of time, Vale. You're a ghost of the man who doomed us all."
Her words hit harder than any blow. My optics dimmed, recalibrating as if to process the weight of them.
"I didn't…" I whispered, more to myself than to her. "That's not how it happened."
But even as I said it, doubts gnawed at me. What if the AI voice inside me wasn't lying? What if fragments of the man they blamed—the destroyer of timelines—were buried in this body with me?
Lira stood, slinging her rifle across her back. "Believe me or not, doesn't matter. What matters is the Authority knows you're awake now. And they'll come for you. For us. That gives us two choices: throw you back to them…"
She paused, her eyes narrowing, "…or fight with you."
The room buzzed with the low hum of the lamps. In the silence, the machine inside me stirred again, whispering through my circuits:
"They will never trust you. You are not Kieran Vale anymore. You are Subject-09. And sooner or later, you will prove them right."